


Through tensed stillness

by NuMo



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Established Relationship, Gen, Grief, Loss, temporal culture shock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 06:47:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13541949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NuMo/pseuds/NuMo
Summary: A tie-in to two wonderful works -Objects at UnrestbyEricineandAn Unexpected JourneybyOparu.Philippa Gergiou finds herself saved and alive and in the future and alone and doesn't know how to handle it.Title taken from the poem that is referenced in the story.





	Through tensed stillness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Oparu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oparu/gifts), [Ericine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ericine/gifts).



Philippa Georgiou prowls the corridors of Deep Space Six like a cat prowls an unfamiliar jungle – aware that all of this is hers for the taking, but alert for surprises nevertheless. She’s been here for three months now, after Janeway and Crusher saved her at the cost of uprooting her entire life, separating her from everyone she loved, and, not too put too fine a point on it, displacing her out of her time by over two centuries.

They haven’t found a solution yet for how to integrate her into life aboard the station, how to even register her as part of this world, this time. Apparently there’s a Federation Department of Temporal Investigations – Philippa is glad that she’s never met them, and grateful that so far, Janeway has kept her out of their line of sight. 

Deep Space Six is massive; a fully realized community in space that serves vessels on the outer fringes of a Federation that is much, much larger than anything Philippa remembers. It’s fascinating, it’s exhilarating; it keeps pushing her off-balance. She feels like when she came to San Francisco for the first time, only more so: she understands the language, but lacks so much context – even more here than back when she joined the Academy. 

Not a single ship that docks here looks like the ones she’s used to, not even the Vulcan ones, and their revision cycles are longer than any Philippa knows. 

They’re at peace with the Klingons. 

They are allied with the Klingons, _and_ the Romulans. Romulans!

There have been, and are, other wars, but they don’t affect Deep Space Six much – wrong part of the quadrant, Janeway usually jokes, but her eyes are grim whenever she does. The ships that dock here are on exploratory missions, trade missions, diplomatic missions, medical or humanitarian missions. Not a lot of Starfleet, to be sure; not when there are wars and skirmishes going on elsewhere, but every now and then Philippa will see the signature blue warp engines outside the viewports and her fingers will curl and itch and long to be at some kind of control panel, do some kind of productive task. 

She longs to be back in service, back out among the stars. She’s said so, multiple times, to Janeway, the commanding officer of this station. A full Starfleet admiral. _Surely_ she can-

Janeway has declined every time. Politely, and with apologies and the promise to sit down together and come up with something that Philippa can do, but it’s a decline, and Philippa finds herself growling at the memory of each instance, growling all the way down in her throat.

Thus denied, frustrated, impatient, Philippa continues her prowl along the corridors, because sitting in her assigned quarters drives her up the walls. Because sitting still brings memories, and memories make her remember that she’s no longer among the people she made these memories with, will never be again, and that _hurts_. Prowling the corridors at least engages her eyes, if not always her mind.

She’s always been enamored with the big cats of Earth, specifically the melanistic variant of the leopard known as the black panther. As a child, her favorite book had been an “adult book,” about native carnivorous species of South East Asia. Her parents, supportive of her fascination, had taken nine year old Philippa to a holo-show with the promising title of “The Jungle Comes Alive” – and had lost her to the wonders of exploration. Literally. Little Philippa had wound her way so deep into the simulated jungle that, panicked, her parents had raised hell with the show’s operator until the woman had turned off the simulation completely, leaving every single of the several dozen attendees standing in an empty, hollowed out building in bafflement. Nine-year old Philippa had completely failed to understand why her parents had been so upset with her. She had never been in any danger, she’d pointed out; it had been a _holographic show_ , not live animals, and had they even _seen_ the amazing black panther she’d found?

Joining Starfleet had been a given the moment Philippa had heard of the organization.

At the Academy, she’d had a roommate from central Europe for a while, who, seeing the painting of a panther among the small line of family pictures Philippa allowed herself in her part of the dorm, pointed her to an ancient German poem about the creature, back from a time where there still were zoos with cages. It had broken Philippa’s heart to read it, and she’d sworn never to find herself in the same situation as that worn-out, incarcerated, broken creature, mind and senses so dulled, so _numb_ that they could no longer perceive anything outside the cage’s boundaries. She’d been incensed that Toni could ever think she’d see anything of herself in _that_ panther, but Toni had simply laughed it away, saying ‘then don’t become like him,’ and _then_ they’d argued about the possible gender of the creature, and word gender in the German language, and Toni, who belonged to no gender themselves but spoke five other European languages – all of which were gendered – had mocked the idea of anything so grandiose as calling English ‘Standard.’ 

And then, years later, she’d taken on an ensign who reminded her of nothing so much as the large black cat she’d encountered, back then in that holo-show. Grace, elegance, and sheer _power_ , mental as well as physical; coiled, at rest, but ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice. Brilliant, composed, proud, Michael Burnham had- 

Philippa stops that thought, as always. 

_Have_ I become that panther now?, she wonders as she passes people by unseeing. The one caged behind a thousand bars, unable to see any world beyond those bars anymore? No. She _does_ see the world, and longs to be in it, and hates sitting on her haunches in her quarters, waiting for a moment when she realizes she truly thinks they are home, truly thinks they are all the world she has left now.

Both Janeway and Crusher have offered their support. Crusher has arranged meeting after meeting with member after member of the stations’ corps of counselors. Philippa has gone, even though she can’t see the point, and one after another, the counselors have told her that if she doesn’t, there’s nothing much they can do to help. And now she-

Someone swears behind her. In Klingon. Loudly. Philippa whirls around, coming face to face with-

“Philippa?!” 

-a stunned… Trill?! Philippa’s thoughts race. There’s only one Trill she’s ever known – and that had been over one hundred and fifty years ago. This woman looks nothing like- but… is there something in the eyes? It can’t be- “Emony?” Philippa ventures.

“It _is_ you!” The Trill woman grabs Philippa’s shoulder in a way that’s familiar and still shakes Philippa to her core. “How in the thrice-striated universe are you here?!”

Philippa swallows dryly. She really can’t start questioning her sanity _now_ , who knows where it’ll end. “I could ask you the same thing,” she says, trying to keep her voice steady.

The young woman gives her a look that tells Philippa plainly that she hasn’t succeeded, then pulls her along to one of the doors on this corridor. “My quarters,” she explains. “If you don’t mind, that is.”

Philippa resorts to snark. “Didn’t used to mind, as I recall, so why should I start now?”

The Trill grins at her, looking bubbly and lighthearted and younger than a cadet and nothing like Emony at all, and gestures Philippa inside. When Philippa hesitates, the woman’s grin yields to soft understanding, and _that_ is a look that Philippa’s seen on Emony’s face often enough that right now, it only deepens her confusion. 

“My name is Ezri Dax,” the Trill says, taking a small step back from Philippa and clasping her hands behind her back. That, too, reminds Philippa of the friend she made in 2229, the friend with the same last name – family name, maybe? Do Trill names work like that? She never asked Emony. That Ezri shares both name and mannerism with Emony does nothing at all to alleviate Philippa’s bewilderment. She does register that the step back Ezri Dax has taken means that she’s no longer standing in the way, should Philippa decide to simply turn and walk away. That cannot be coincidence. Philippa makes up her mind. 

“Philippa Gergiou,” she says, “but somehow I think you already know that, and I’d very much like to find out how.”

The door closes behind them. Thirty paces further down the corridor, Kathryn turns to Beverly. “I do hope your plan works,” she says in a low voice. 

“Trust me,” Beverly winks back at her. “I’m no counselor, but I learned from the best.”

**Author's Note:**

> The poem referenced here is "Der Panther (Untertitel: Im Jardin des Plantes, Paris) von Rainer Maria Rilke":
> 
> Sein Blick ist vom Vorübergehn der Stäbe  
> so müd geworden, daß er nichts mehr hält.  
> Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Stäbe gäbe  
> und hinter tausend Stäben keine Welt.
> 
> Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte,  
> der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht,  
> ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte,  
> in der betäubt ein großer Wille steht.
> 
> Nur manchmal schiebt der Vorhang der Pupille  
> sich lautlos auf –. Dann geht ein Bild hinein,  
> geht durch der Glieder angespannte Stille –  
> und hört im Herzen auf zu sein.
> 
> English Translation by Howard Engelskirchen
> 
> His gaze is so tired from overreaching iron bars,  
> It holds no more. For him it’s as if there were  
> A thousand thousand bars and behind  
> Those thousand no world.
> 
> The supple pacing muscled steps  
> Which narrow to an ever smaller ring  
> Are like a dance of power to a midpoint  
> Where a great will stands numbed.
> 
> Yet at times, all noiseless, the pupil  
> Seems unveiled – an image enters, shudders  
> Through tensed stillness in the limbs –  
> And in the heart ends, extinguished.


End file.
